Explorer I sits
on the launch pad venting before launch, January 31, 1958. (NASA photo
97-H-482)

Dr. William
H. Pickering, Dr. James A. Van Allen, and Dr. Wernher von Braun (left
to right) hoist a model of Explorer I and the final stage after the successful
launching on January 31, 1958. (NASA photo 78-H-136)

The first test
launch of the Vanguard launch vehicle for the U.S.-IGY Earth Satellites
Program to place a satellite in Earth orbit to determine atmospheric density
and conduct geodetic measurements. A malfunction in the first stage caused
the vehicle to lose thrust after two seconds, and the vehicle was destroyed.

Icing research
is under way during the 1940s at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland,
Ohio, one of the NACA's original facilities that became part of NASA.

This photo
shows the original twelve-foot pressure wind tunnel at the Ames Research
Center in Mountain View, California, shortly after its construction in
1946. Ames was another NACA facility that became part of NASA. (NASA photo
94-H-418)

The Birth of NASA:
November 3, 1957October 1, 1958

President Eisenhower spoke
on television on November 7 as Sputnik I and Sputnik II orbited Earth.
He displayed a missile nose cone recovered after a suborbital flight on
a Jupiter-C rocket a few days before. Eisenhower's prepared statement
focused on improving science and technology education, and he announced
the appointment of Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., the president of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, as his Special Assistant for Science and Technology.
Killian's appointment was interpreted in Congress as a determination to
put a civilian spin on the growing debate over the future course of U.S.
space exploration.32 Eisenhower confirmed
this conviction during a November 13 speech on technical education in
Oklahoma City, in which he spoke publicly of a civilian space agency for
the first time.

On Monday, November 25, the
Senate Preparedness Subcommittee hearings commenced. These hearings kept
Lyndon Johnson and the missile and space issues in the public eye for
several weeks. Seventy-three witnesses provided their assessments of the
state of U.S. missile technology and interpretations of the events leading
up to Sputnik. John Hagen told Johnson that Project Vanguard could have
beat Sputnik I into orbit if it had been afforded a higher priority.33
He reported that he had asked for higher priority in 1955 but never received
a response.34

Donald Quarles testified that,
in retrospect, the job of launching an IGY satellite should have been
given to the Army in 1955. He hastened to add, however, that "[t]aking
the missile program as a whole and comparing their [the Soviet] program
with our own, I estimate that as of today our program is ahead."
He told subcommittee chair Johnson that the United States was ahead in
electronics, but it was hard to say which country was ahead in missiles.
It was true, he said, that the Russians had a more powerful rocket engine,
but "one would be even there cautious about the statement that they
were ahead of us in rocket engines." He reported that since Sputnik
I, there had been no acceleration of U.S. rocket programsnone was
necessary. Johnson interpreted this as complacency on the part of the
Pentagon and the Eisenhower White House. "The net of it is, "he
drawled, "that the American people can have adequate defense and
eat their cake tooand even have whipped cream on it."35

The subcommittee did not explore
specifically how the United States should organize to explore space, but
this complex and contentious issue was a subtext. As the hearings continued
into early December, the Eisenhower administration transferred to the
White House the Science Advisory Committee of the Defense Department's
Office of Defense Mobilization. It became the nucleus of the new President's
Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), which was constituted in part to consider
how best to organize the U.S. space effort. Five new members were added,
including James Doolittle, chair of the National Advisory Committee on
Aeronautics (NACA), which was created in 1916 to be the civilian government
organization performing research into aviation.

The push to organize a national
space program received new impetus on December 6, when the Vanguard TV-3
rocket climbed about a yard above its Florida launch pad before falling
back and exploding. The mission was to have been the first all-up test
of the new Vanguard rocket. TV-3 carried a one- and-seven-tenths-kilogram
(three-and-a-quarter-pound) test satellite derided by Soviet leader Khrushchev
as an "orange."36

On December 30, James Killian
wrote a memorandum to Eisenhower in which he noted that many scientists
held "deeply felt convictions" opposing Defense Department control
of the space program because they felt it would limit space research strictly
to military objectives and would tar all U.S. space activity as military
in nature. He then offered some organizational alternatives for space
that he believed would provide "the means for non-military basic
space research while at the same time taking advantage of the immense
resources of the military missile and recon satellite programs."
Killian proposed a Defense Department–operated "central space laboratory
with a very broad charter," which he likened to the Los Alamos National
Laboratory. He wrote that the administration might also "encourage
NACA to extend its space research and provide it with the necessary funds
to do so."37, 38

The ABMA's Explorer satellite
program continued in its backup role following the Vanguard TV-3's failure
in December. Range restrictions prevented simultaneous Vanguard and Explorer
launch preparations. The
ABMA's opportunity arrived on January 26 when the backup to the ill-fated
TV-3 vehicle, the Vanguard TV-3BU, had to "stand down" pending
a second stage engine replacement. This gave the Huntsville team until
about February 1 to make a launch attempt. The first attempt on January
30 was scrubbed because of unfavorable winds. The jet stream shifted north
the next day, however. At 10:48 p.m. Eastern time on January 31, 1958,
Explorer I lifted off on top of a Jupiter-C. At 12:51 a.m. on February
1, a successful orbit was confirmed.

Explorer I's success encouraged
supporters of a crash effort to recoup lost U.S. prestige by launching
an automated probe to the Moon. The proposal, first discussed in Barcelona
the morning after Sputnik, came up for discussion in the February 4, 1958,
Legislative Leadership Meeting at the White Housean opportunity
for Republican congressional leaders and the Eisenhower administration
to compare notes.

Interestingly, despite his
problems with the Sputniks, Eisenhower remained cold to reaping the prestige
benefits of a Moon shot. The meeting minutes state that Eisenhower was
"firmly of the opinion that the rule of reason had to be applied
to these Space projectsthat we couldn't pour unlimited funds into
these costly projects where there was nothing of early value to the Nation's
security. . . . [I]n the present situation, the President mused, he would
rather have a good Redstone than be able to hit the moon, for we didn't
have any enemies on the moon!" When Senator William Knowland pointed
out the prestige value of being first to hit the Moon, Eisenhower relented
partly, saying that if a rocket now available could do the job, work should
go ahead. The President stressed, however, that he "didn't want to
rush into an all-out effort on each of these possible glamor performances
without a full appreciation of their great cost."39

Meanwhile, Congress discussed
alternatives for organizing the U.S. space program. House Majority Leader
John McCormack, a Massachusetts Democrat, called for a presidentially
appointed National Science Council, while another faction sought to put
the space program under control of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
Democratic Senators John McClellan of Arkansas and Hubert Humphrey of
Minnesota called for the establishment of a Department of Science and
Technology headed by a Cabinet-level secretary, a proposal Eisenhower
opposed.40

Although making the NACA the
nucleus of a civilian space program did not at first find supporters in
Congress, it soon became the favorite option of the PSAC. On February
4, the Purcell Panel was established to consider organizational alternatives
for space. The panel was named for Nobel Laureate Edward Purcell, who
was appointed to the PSAC in December when it transferred to the White
House. On February 21, S. Paul Johnston, director of the Institute for
Aeronautical Sciences and a participant in the panel, summed up the issue
of space program organization as one of "exploration" versus
"control." The latter, he said, was a military function. He
cited four possible organizational alternatives:

Establish a new
government agency. This would, he wrote, take too much time.

Assign the space
program to the AEC.In
political terms, this proposal was well supported in Congress,
but the AEC had no experience in the space field, and its new
responsibilities would constitute a distraction from its vital
atomic energy roles. Johnston dubbed the alternative "the
least practical."

Establish the
NACA as the controlling agency. Johnston pointed out that
"[e]xtending [the NACA's] interests into space technology
would seem to be a logical evolutionary step from its research
activities of the past 40-odd years."

Assign space
to the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Defense
Department. ARPA was created on February 7, 1958. "ARPA
could take on the job with a minimum of additional legislation,"
wrote Johnston, "but military interests might outweigh
the purely scientific and civil aspects. . . . It would be difficult
to avoid security restrictions, and participation in international
programs of a purely scientific nature might thereby be hampered."41

On February 6, the Senate formed
an ad hoc Special Committee on Space and Astronautics chaired by Lyndon
Johnson. On March 5, the same day Vanguard 1 reached orbit, the House
of Representatives established the ad hoc Select Committee on Astronautics
and Space Exploration with House Majority Leader John McCormack as chair.
Also on March 5, the President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization
chair Nelson Rockefeller, James Killian, and Bureau of the Budget Director
Percival Brundage recommended to Eisenhower that "leadership of the
civil space effort be lodged in a strengthened and redesignated National
Advisory Committee for Astronautics."42
Eisenhower immediately authorized their proposal and assigned the Bureau
of the Budget to draft the required legislation.

In a speech to a joint session
of Congress on April 2, Eisenhower called for a NACA-based civilian National
Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). He also handed down a directive ordering
the NACA and the Defense Department to begin arranging the transfer of
nonmilitary Department of Defense space assets to the NACA. On April 14,
Lyndon Johnson and New Hampshire Republican Styles Bridges introduced
the Senate version of the NASA bill (S-3609), and John McCormack introduced
the House version (HR-11881). Hearings commenced the following day.

On May 1, James Van Allen announced
that radiation detectors aboard Explorer I and Explorer III (launched
March 26) had been swamped by high radiation levels at certain points
in their orbits. This pointed to the existence of powerful radiation belts
surrounding Earth. The detection of the Van Allen Belts was the first
major space discovery. Supporters of Eisenhower's methodical approach
to space exploration capitalized on the find, pointing out that the Soviet
Union's two heavy Sputniks had accomplished no equivalent scientific feat.
In fact, the Soviets had not launched a new satellite since Sputnik II
in November.

On May 5, NACA chair James
A. Doolittle testified to the House Committee on Astronautics and Space
Exploration that the U.S. civilian space program had "two focused
objectivesgaining scientific data using automated probes and sending
into space craft that will carry men on voyages of exploration."
Branding an early Moon shot a "stunt," Doolittle added that
"[i]n our programming we should keep our eyes focused on these objectives.
The fact that the Russians may accomplish some specific objectives in
their space programs first should not in itself be permitted to divert
us from our own designated objectives."43

Korolev's team had not stopped
work since Sputnik II. On May 15, Korolev finally launched the conical,
1,330-kilogram (2,926-pound) Object-D satellite. Academician Sedov declared,
"The new Sputnik . . . could easily carry a man with a stock of food
and supplementary equipment."44
The sheer size of the satellite triggered new recriminations and new calls
for action. Aviation Week editor-in-chief Robert Hotz again articulated
well the mood in the U.S. space community:

Successful launching
of the 3000-lb Soviet Sputnik III should dispel most of the wishful
thinking that has hung over the U.S. space policy since the fiery
plunge of Sputnik II into the Caribbean [on April 14]. It proves
once again that the Soviets' early Sputniks were no lucky accidents.
It proves that the Soviet space program is a well-organized, consistent
effort that is attempting to progress in significant increments
rather than simply shooting for some spectacular, international
propaganda stunt. It also indicates that the Soviet program has
solid and consistent support not subject to the ups and downs of
top level policy changes or political whims of the moment. . . .
We are still debating in Congress the advisability of establishing
a National Aeronautics and Space Agency. We hope Sputnik III will
shake some of the Congressional nitpickers out of their lofty perches
and prod them into action on this vital measure.45

Hotz soon got his wish. The
House NASA bill passed on June 2, with the Senate version following on
June 16. The most important conflict between the bills was the structure
and composition of a committee advising the agency's director. The House
billwhich Eisenhower favoredmade provision for a relatively
weak seventeen-member advisory committee, while the Senate bill had a
strong seven-member policy board. A bipartisan nineteen-member blue ribbon
panel chaired by Johnson produced a joint version that retained the strong
policy board. President Eisenhower continued his opposition to the policy
board on the grounds that it would usurp presidential authority. Eisenhower
and Johnson met at the White House on July 7 to break the impasse. Johnson
suggested that the president serve as chair of the policy board, and Eisenhower
agreed.46 The blue ribbon panel met
for the final time on July 15, changing the policy board's name to the
National Aeronautics and Space Council. Congress passed the final version
of the bill on July 16, and President Eisenhower signed it into law on
July 29, 1958.

The National Aeronautics and
Space Act of 1958 (Public Law 85–568) stated that the NACA would become
NASA after ninety days unless the transition was proclaimed sooner by
the NASA administrator. On August 8, Eisenhower nominated T. Keith Glennan,
the president of the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio,
to be NASA's first administrator. He nominated NACA Director Hugh Dryden
as deputy administrator. The Senate confirmed the nominations with little
debate on August 14. On August 19, the Department of Defense and NASA
agreed to transfer nonmilitary space projects, but they deferred the actual
transfers until after NASA was in place. Glennan and Dryden were sworn
in on August 20.

On August 17, the United States
attempted its first Moon shot, an ARPA lunar orbiter on a Thor missile
with an Able-1 upper stage. The Air Force Thor first stage exploded after
seventy-seven seconds, destroying the thirty-eight-kilogram (eighty-four-pound)
probe.

On September 4, Eisenhower
appointed his fellow National Aeronautics and Space Council members. These
included Glennan, Detlov Bronk, and James Doolittle. Glennan proclaimed
NASA ready to succeed the NACA on September 25.

On October 1, 1958, NASA officially
opened for business with five facilities inherited from the NACA: Lewis
Research Center in Ohio, Langley Research Center and the Wallops rocket
test range in Virginia, and Ames Research Center and the Muroc aircraft
test range in California. That same day, Eisenhower issued an executive
order transferring space projects and appropriations from other space
programs to NASA. These gave NASA 8,240 staff (8,000 from the NACA) and
a budget of approximately $340 million.